Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the late addition of the Louisiana abortion case to an already impactful Supreme Court docket. The most interesting aspect of June Medical however may be what it will ultimately say about the doctrine of Stare Decisis and the respect for precedent.
Here is the column:
The Supreme Court is beginning one of the most consequential terms in its history, with cases dealing with gun rights, immigration, and other hot button issues. While much of the media is focused on Ukraine, the court added one case that is a standout on its already weighty docket. That case is June Medical Services versus Rebekah Gee, which involves a Louisiana abortion law, and it could be the one that pro-life advocates have long awaited to break the 5-4 wall of protection around pro-choice precedent.
The Louisiana case also is important because of its potential impact on a longstanding principle called stare decisis, the doctrine that commits justices to respect prior holdings to preserve the continuity and integrity of the court. That doctrine has always been honored primarily in the breach but, this term, with a dozen cases in highly contested areas, it could lose even the pretense of a functioning principle. Indeed, June Medical could be a lethal dose for the centuries old judicial doctrine.
June Medical is the perfect vehicle for chipping away not just at the legacy of Roe versus Wade but at the hold of precedent on such cases. Three years ago, the court struck down provisions under a Texas statute with a similar provision to the Louisiana law, requiring that doctors who perform abortions must have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The court ruled 5-3 in the Texas case that such requirements imposed a “substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a pre-viability abortion.” As conservative judge Patrick Higginbotham stated in his dissent to the Fifth Circuit Court opinion that upheld the Louisiana law, the Supreme Court decision on the Texas case would seem to clearly answer the same question. Higginbotham criticized his colleagues for failing to “meaningfully apply” the previous Supreme Court rulings.
The truth is that nothing has changed in three years regarding case law, but much has changed on the Supreme Court. The 5-3 Texas decision reflected the key role of sinc retired Justice Anthony Kennedy as the swing vote on the bench and the missing role of Justice Antonin Scalia, who passed away before the release of what would have been a 5-4 decision. Now Kennedy has been replaced by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Scalia has been replaced by Justice Neil Gorsuch. That is why the new case could pose as great a threat to stare decisis as it does to Roe. Supreme Court justices seem to rediscover the doctrine of stare decisis whenever they lack a fifth vote for the majority. Those same justices often show no qualms in reversing prior cases when they have the votes to do so.
The hypocrisy around this doctrine was driven home by a deeply disturbing filing in a pending gun rights case by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. In a brief filed on behalf of himself and Senators Mazie Hirono, Richard Blumenthal, Richard Durbin, and Kirsten Gillibrand, Whitehouse objected that the five conservative justices routinely ruled together and he threatened the court with “restructuring” if it does not “heal” itself. In other words, start voting with the liberal justices or face a court packing bill. Of course, Whitehouse does not view the four liberal justices regularly voting together as being biased or ideologically rigid. That is because he views those justices as correct and the conservative justices as wrong. Thus, he has attacked the conservative justices for failing to honor stare decisis, without a hint of awareness in his own calling for various landmark conservative decisions to be overturned.
It may be time to reconsider the scope of stare decisis and what it suggests about interpretation. Justices take an oath to uphold the Constitution and to “faithfully and impartially” interpret the law. It is bizarre to argue that they should vote for some interpretation of the Constitution that they believe is wrong and unfounded just to preserve precedent. If that view had prevailed in the past, Brown versus Board of Education would have upheld the racist precepts of “separate but equal” in Plessy versus Ferguson. Indeed, Roe versus Wade would have upheld the right of states to determine access to abortions. When it comes to fundamental rights, justices should faithfully interpret the Constitution.
Whitehouse and others pressed Kavanaugh in his nomination to promise to uphold Roe and the cases that followed it. Yet if Kavanaugh does not believe there is a right to an abortion in the Constitution or that this is a state issue, then why should he vote to uphold an interpretation that he considers incorrect? There have been plenty of settled but wrong rulings by the court. I seriously doubt that Whitehouse would expect Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to vote against the right to choose if she did not prevail in earlier cases. Indeed, the liberal justices continue to oppose prior rulings in areas ranging from the death penalty to gun rights to union fees.
This brings us back to June Medical. If the court sides with Louisiana, the decision could encourage a myriad of state laws limiting abortion services or practices. The fear is of a strategy to kill Roe by a thousand cuts. There are ample reasons to oppose such a course under past interpretations of the Constitution. However, I would not expect that a new justice such as Kavanaugh should adopt any interpretations of the Constitution simply because they preceded him on the court. The underlying interpretation of the Constitution is either correct or it is not. The passage of time does not produce some judicial alchemy that turns lead reasoning into gold.
Citizens rely on the Constitution to define and protect core democratic values. Supreme Court justices have a duty to all citizens to get it right. When it comes to the correct interpretation of the Constitution, poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox may have had the only principled approach, when she declared that “no question is ever settled until it is settled right.”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
The “purpose” of the doctrine is to provide continuity for the law. The courts may change opinions when the law itself is changed: either a statute or the Constitution. States have powers. People have rights. The notion of “states’ rights” is an infringement on human rights.
Continuity with poor decixions by prior Supreme Courts is nowhere in the law. Prof. Turley is right – a case before them ought to be guided by the Constitution itself. Not by Juidge Taney and the Dred Scott case.
DEMOCRAT FEMINIST PANTSUIT CRAZY ATTACKS WHITE MALES IN OAK PARK ILLINOIS–
https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1182261865658949633?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1182261865658949633&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fcity-diversity-meeting-ends-chaos-white-males-banned-speaking
THIS IS WHAT I MEAN BY A SCREECHING HARRIDAN– LIZ WARREN IS THE TYPE–
If American women become American men, who’s going to have babies?
The idiotic 19th Dumbmendment was not well thought out, nor was “globalization,” the exportation of the American economy.
The American fertility rate is in a “death spiral” and the American population is being imported.
The Chinese and Indian populations are 1.4 and 1.3 billion respectively.
There are maybe 750 million Americans, Europeans, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders in the world.
That’s a multiple of 10 when juxtaposed with the world population of 7.53 billion.
Perhaps humans are obsolete and self-replicating AI will takeover.
There’s no future in not having babies…lots of babies.
“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming a human embryo into a human being.”
– Barack Obama
_____________
While I may be a little off with my quotation, please allow me to simplify and clarify the abortion issue.
A sin is a crime.
Murder is a sin.
Abortion is murder.
Abortion is a crime.
As usual, legal and governmental considerations are unnecessarily complex, irrational and popularly decadent.
To wit,
The Ten Commandments
1. You shall have no other gods before Me.
2. You shall make no idols.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
4. Keep the Sabbath day holy.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet.
P.S. The Ten Commandments were written to stand in perpetuity and they shall not be amended, “legislated from the bench” or otherwise modified.
GOD – circa 16th and 13th centuries bc
Naïve persons like yourself miss something critical: every single word of the OT was written for the Ioudaios exclusively; the NT was addressed first to the Ioudaios, then later included all those who would choose to believe. When non-believers read it, those not chosen to believe are reading someone else’s mail.
Further, one of the prime reasons the earliest non-indigenous Americans emigrated here is to escape the religious bigotry of Europe, hence the amendments separating church and state. What you seem to suggest is a “theocracy,” the exact thing the founding fathers detested and desired to escape (Church of England, etc.)
Further still, there are about 40k different Protestant denominations. Virtually every single Protestant Church is right now either splitting into a splinter group or soon shall. To think that even Christians agree on all things Biblical is, well, it borders on or is insane. Protestants have a good record of killing each other over Bible verses. When the mentally deranged Luther (his inspiration was on an alleged “blessed toilet” which historians say they found a few years ago) started out saying the Anabaptists were cool, then 7 years later he told his peodobaptist clan to slaughter all the Anabaptists who would not convert and baptize their babies.
I don’t know how old you are, but you have a lot of reading to do, and you need to do more research before you continue typing your pathetic, ignorant missives telling non-Christians to act like Christians. Non-Christians kill in the name of Christ every single day, and to say this is doing Satan’s work should be self-evident, but it’s not.
There’s a Prince of Peace, and “Blessed are the peacemakers,” but Christians are under the Zionist impression that killing is sometimes blessed too, ignoring, “Those who hate me love death.”
Sorry, I omitted this: when NT believers read the OT, they are to read it as a history lesson. So in this way, in the light of the NT, the OT was addressed solely and originally only to the Ioudaios, but NT believers can and should read it for its history lesson. The OT means nothing to a modern Judaic, because the NT commands them to obey and love Christ as God, which they refuse to do.
It is proper to say that OT Ioudaios were saved by the same thing as NT believers, by faith, they just did not know the object of their faith (Christ as God), whereas NT believers do know the object.
There is no such thing as a “Judeo-Christian” anything. Such term is wrong, because it couches, it creates a false atmosphere in which both believers and non-believers can “drop” Christ into a Judaic framework even today.
Such framework existed, but only from the start of Christ’s ministry till 70 AD, when God, through his agent Nero (666) destroyed the last Mosaic temple, once and for eternity. Since that moment in time, the Mosaic Law and all it entails was permanently wiped from the earth. Hence the terms “New Jerusalem” in heaven, in Revelation.
You need to read about Preterism. All Biblical prophecy was fulfilled in 70 AD. Since that time there is no more Biblical prophecy to be fulfilled.
Given that the Sanhedrin decided the fate of Jesus, I’m gonna take a wild guess that Jesus and most certainly his followers broke from the Jews while retaining much of their law including the Ten Commandments. The American colonies seceded from England, became the United States of America and retained much of the English common law, as I understand it.
Indeed, you changed the subject. I wrote about murder, which abortion is, being against basic human sensitivities and fundamental law. What kind of human being kills its own babies?
So the guy who made the wheel still enjoys royalties from the original patent even from people who fly everywhere they go?
Latest Polls Show Females Deserting Trump
Educated White, Suburban Women Want Impeachment
President Donald Trump was in trouble with women voters long before House Democrats launched a formal impeachment inquiry against him last week. Since then, his standing has grown only worse.
Nearly a half-dozen polls conducted since last Tuesday, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi directed her colleagues to proceed with pursuing Trump for potentially impeachable offenses, have shown women voters rallying behind her decision, exacerbating concerns among White House allies that white women who helped carry Trump to victory in 2016 can no longer be counted on next November.
The development comes as independent voters and college-educated whites — two more demographic groups that could make or break Trump’s reelection bid — have shown signs of softening their resistance to impeachment. Taken together, the latest polls paint an alarming picture for the president, whose base is sticking by him but cannot be counted on by themselves to deliver him a second term.
Back-to-back polls this week found greater support for the impeachment proceedings than opposition among white voters with college degrees — a group that backed Trump over Hillary Clinton by a slightly greater margin in 2016, according to publicly available exit data. Fifty percent of college-educated whites in an NPR/Marist College survey said they approved of House Democrats’ decision to launch the formal impeachment inquiry into Trump. That compares to a narrower margin of support for the move, 45-43, in a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday.
Even more dangerous for the president and his allies is the apparent groundswell of support for impeachment among women — including self-described independents, white women with college degrees and women in suburban communities. Five polls conducted since last Tuesday have shown majorities of women endorsing Democratic efforts to remove Trump from office, ranging from 57 percent of registered female voters who strongly or somewhat approve of impeachment in a CBS survey released Sunday to 62 percent of women in a Quinnipiac University survey released Monday who said they think “Trump believes he is above the law.”
The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll found a 15-point gap between independent women who support impeachment (48 percent) and voters within the same demographic who oppose it (33 percent). A similar gap emerged in the NPR/Marist survey among suburban women, 57 percent of whom said they support the impeachment inquiry versus 39 percent who disapprove of the move.
“I really don’t like where we are right now,” said one prominent Republican pollster.
Edited from: “Trump’s Impeachment Defense Spooks White Women”
Politico, 10/3/19
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
This morning several sources report that a new Fox News Poll echoes the findings above: “White women deserting Trump”. In fact, 5 hours ago Trump tweeted that Fox News polls “suck”. But my effort to find that poll, on Fox’s news site, was unsuccessful.
The fact that women are deserting Trump is significant regarding the abortion issue. Here we have a president trying to ban abortion as his support among women collapses. A president who was known for decades as a playboy. That ‘Trump’, of all leaders, seeks to ban abortion will go down in history as significantly ironic.
TRUMP REACTS TO FOX NEWS POLLS..
SHOWING SUPPORT FOR IMPEACHMENT AT 51%
Donald J. TrumpVerified account @realDonaldTrump 6 hours ago
…Court Justice & I turned him down (he’s been terrible ever since), Shep Smith, @donnabrazile (who gave Crooked Hillary the debate questions & got fired from @CNN), & others, @FoxNews doesn’t deliver for US anymore. It is so different than it used to be. Oh well, I’m President!
Donald J. TrumpVerified account @realDonaldTrump 6 hours ago
From the day I announced I was running for President, I have NEVER had a good @FoxNews Poll. Whoever their Pollster is, they suck. But @FoxNews is also much different than it used to be in the good old days. With people like Andrew Napolitano, who wanted to be a Supreme….
Edited from: The Real Donald Trump
Twitter, 10/10/19
Wow!
I sure am fooled.
I don’t know this clown is Peter Shill.
Isnt this the guy who trolls the gay apps, gets blocked by his peers and then spews his estrogen laced tirades on us about our weirdness?
yeah, he is a sound dude fo sho
lol
Gabe, that’s Estovir, the ex-priest. He writes about toilets and grinders. No one can figure out how he gets away wit it.
When it comes to the correct interpretation of the Constitution, poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox may have had the only principled approach, when she declared that “no question is ever settled until it is settled right.”
**************
Lots for the pro-life crowd to use from EWW:
“I am the voice of the voiceless; Through me the dumb shall speak.
Till the deaf world’s ears be made to hear. The wrongs of the wordless weak.
And I am my brothers keeper, And I will fight his fights;
And speak the words for beast and bird. Till the world shall set things right.”
Perfect.
And please do it not by unconstitutional dictatorship but in the free markets of the private sector.
no worries there. ObeyMe is gone and the Constitution is back.
But there is macabre humor in this. I’ve noticed those heavily in favor of no limit on age limit abortion are the same bunch from the same group that a few decades ago were spitting on us and calling us baby killers. so my question is….
Who are the real baby killers?
Same ones that ensured the draft stayed in force.
I find it interesting that, thus far, nobody has mentioned that even thought she supported the outcome, RBG felt that the decision should have been made by legislators.
The SC has no integrity, just as no other branch of the US govt. has integrity. It’s all a sick joke.
I don’t believe there is any justice on that court who gives a crap about our Constitution. (However, they might take a crap and use it as toilet paper as Bush Jr. suggested.) That means this ruling will be solely based on a political calculation to help one or another corrupt candidate win our corrupt presidency.
These aren’t people who care about anything other than power. That is how shameful this entire government is.
I bet as moral agents the worst of the Justices compares favorably to Jill.
Now our country is run by executive decisions, judicial verdicts or rulings being made by bureaucrats running government buracracies. Our legislators have been to busy the past three years trying to get Donald Trump out of office.
The House has passed over a 100 bills since the 2018 election. The Senate, about 20.
They might work on passing something which is (1) the least bit consequential and (2) in the public interest. Everything the Democratic Party does is either to send more swag to their preferred clientele or to institute more vicious harassment of the people they despise.
The oft made false charge is the House has done nothing because they spend their time chasing Trump. That is completely false. If TIA doesn’t like the bills they have passed, that is a separate issue.
Mr Kurtz was right. The legislators are chicken and afraid to legislate for self serving political reasons.
Do your revere the power of precedent in “Dred Scott’ or ‘Separate But Equal’ decisions?
Free people make their own decisions.
Sadly for the uninitiated, the Constitution does not guarantee winners.
Americans have the absolute right to possession and disposition of private property making rent control, fair housing laws, non-discrimination laws, affirmative action, quotas, etc., unconstitutional. James Madison defined private property as “that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.” Freedom of disassembly is an immutable corollary of the freedom of assembly.
Article 1, Section 8; read it. Congress has no power to tax for individual welfare only “…general Welfare…,” look up the definition of general, and Congress has absolutely NO enumerated power to regulate anything other than “…money…” and “…commerce among the several States.” Charity is to be voluntary and it is industry conducted in the free markets of the private sector. Appropriate regulation is to be funded and conducted by related industries in the free markets of the private sector. Courts exist for redress. Constitutional redress of grievances may not violate the Constitution and Bill of Rights and it is not the imposition of dictatorship.
Nowhere does the Constitution provide special, different, inferior or superior (i.e. “civil” rights) rights to any person or group. Minorities claim equality then demand enhanced and superior rights. “All men are created equal.” After creation, all men are free and on their own.
People must adapt to the outcomes of freedom.
Freedom does not adapt to people…dictatorship does.
You don’t like the winners so you want to “amend” and “legislate” America into the domain of the losers. Sorry, in a nation of laws, you just lost to America’s fundamental law. The entire American welfare state is unconstitutional.
Pertaining to the judicial branch, if a person speaks the language, he does not need an interpreter.
To wit,
“[A] limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing … To deny this would be to affirm … that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”
– Alexander Hamilton
So Prof Turley would make stare decisis null and void! Doesn’t he believe there is any need for consistency in the Court’s interpretation and application of the Constitution? How would we ever know, at any given time, what laws and actions are Constitutional and which ones are not?
Are you serious? Abortion is legal now. Unless your unconscious if/when that changes, you’ll probably know, because “peaceniks” (progressives) shall be busy burning down their liberal feces holes (San Francisco, NY, etc.)
So you’re saying you liked it when blacks were 3/5ths “human?”
Overturn Roe v Wade now.
She is a child not a “choice”
Fetal heart rate
A normal fetal heart rate (FHR) usually ranges from 120 to 160 beats per minute (bpm) in the in utero period. It is measurable sonographically from around 6 weeks and the normal range varies during gestation, increasing to around 170 bpm at 10 weeks and decreasing from then to around 130 bpm at term.
Evolution through gestation
Although the myocardium begins to contract rhythmically by 3 weeks after conception (from spontaneously depolarizing myocardial pacemaker cells in the embryonic heart) it is first visible on sonography around 6 weeks of gestation. The FHR is then usually around 100 to 120 beats per minute (bpm).
FHR then increases progressively over the subsequent 2-3 weeks becoming 7:
~110 bpm (mean) by 5-6 weeks
~170 bpm by 9-10 weeks
This is followed by a decrease in FHR becoming on average:
~150 bpm by 14 weeks
~140 bpm by 20 weeks
~130 bpm by term
Although in the healthy fetus the heart rate is usually regular, a beat-to-beat variation of approximately 5 to 15 beats per minute can be allowed.
radiopaedia dot org
Turley says: ” I would not expect that a new justice such as Kavanaugh should adopt any interpretations of the Constitution simply because they preceded him on the court. The underlying interpretation of the Constitution is either correct or it is not. The passage of time does not produce some judicial alchemy that turns lead reasoning into gold.” This is shocking for someone who holds himself out to be a Constitutional scholar.
The reason why Kavanaugh should respect Roe v. Wade is not just because the issues raised in Roe have been settled–it is also to respect the principles of stare decisis. The issue was heavily-briefed, there were multiple amici, and plenty of supporters for both sides. The case law evolution of the Constitutional right of privacy is well-explained in Roe. The decision rests on solid constitutional ground–women have a right of privacy and are empowered to make the decision about whether to have an abortion until the fetus is of viable age, at which point states can ban abortion. The passage of time does not change the foundational principles on which Roe rests–which is the right of privacy. The fact that Kavanaugh has a different opinion is of no matter. Turley is wrong when he says: ” if Kavanaugh does not believe there is a right to an abortion in the Constitution or that this is a state issue, then why should he vote to uphold an interpretation that he considers incorrect?: Why? Because he’s not there to express his own opinion, and is duty-bound to apply stare decisis. That he has a different opinion is irrelevant because the SCOTUS has already addressed and disposed of the grounds for whatever beliefs he has. His beliefs aren’t “right” because he’s now on the SCOTUS. The fact that he may disagree that a woman has a right of personal autonomy over her own body until the fetus is of viable age is not right because that’s what he believes. This is not like enlightenment that comes with the passage of time.
If we chuck stare decisis, then every time a new justice comes on board, every prior SCOTUS decision can and will be revisited. There will be no stability in the law, and people could not rely on the ultimate authority of the SCOTUS because every time a justice dies or retires, the law could change. That is knee-jerk, and wrong, but the chance that this could happen drives conservative states to pass laws that directly conflict with SCOTUS rulings, forcing litigation and appeals on the hope that they can finally get their way. The issue of abortion is settled. If the SCOTUS allows Roe to be overturned, then what’s next? The people with the most money to hire attorneys can and will push litigation to overturn prior rulings. States that disagree with prior rulings will push the envelope, and there will be no stability in the law. Matters that come before the SCOTUS are, by their very nature, controversial, with strong arguments on both sides. The role of the SCOTUS is to be the final authority and to SETTLE the law, especially when it comes to Constitutionally-protected individual rights. That’s why Kavanaugh better not vote to overturn Roe.
“If we chuck stare decisis, then every time a new justice comes on board, every prior SCOTUS decision can and will be revisited.” Yes, and that is why the liberals want more liberal justices on the bench, not so they can uphold previous decisions they disagree with. You want it both ways.
I’ll trust “We the People…” over stare decisis any day. The words are not in the Constitution for a reason. They didn’t want SCOTUS to have – or to even THINK they have – the power to “settle” the law. Roe supporters wouldn’t be so desperate about stare decisis if the issue of abortion was resolved at the highest constitutional level of authority. Roe supporters backed off from pushing for an amendment, and they were smart to do so. When “We the People” are ready for that, they’ll let you know.
you guys are so fake. you could care less about stare decisis on any case you don’t like. be honest
Roe was judicial legislation. again, be honest. it was illegal in 40-some states and with the decision all those state laws were swept aside.
it was judicial federal legislation that the Congress may have wanted but it was too chicken to undertake. like a few other things in history I can think of, too.
always the tough decisions in America are settled by courts or war. But in the end, always, money seems to be the most decisive factor, or so I fear.
This intervention ignores the Plessy/Brown conundrum.
I tend to agree with the idea that the Constitution protects a right to privacy. The term was not used when the Constitution was drafted but the rights that are very clearly expressed in the Constitution do amount nearly to a definition of a right to privacy.
My question, though, is where is that right now? It seems the government and corporations are trampling on that right without any objection from the Roe v. Wade people.
Setting aside the volatile abortion issue for a moment. Stare decisis. Why is that so revered? Are we saying that courts can never make a bad ruling? The worst example I can think of is Dred Scott. Should that be settled law for ever? Is that the only time in all of history a decision was questionable?
Decisions like Dred Scot were overturned because of enlightenment that happens with the passage of time and evolution and awareness of social justice and the population becoming better educated. Those concepts don’t apply to Roe v. Wade. There are no new principles involved here. There is either a right of privacy to make a medical decision about termination up to the age of fetal viability that is protected by the Constitution, or there isn’t. The overarching issue is whether and to what extent the government has any voice in reproductive decisions. Roe settled that. And, by the way, if the government DOES have a voice in reproductive decisions and can outlaw abortion, then it could also require abortion, say for people with genetic problems or fetuses with congenital anomalies if it chose to do so. It could also mandate vasectomy and tubal ligations if there is no right of privacy regarding reproductive decisions. In fact, states used to mandate the sterilization of people considered “unfit” due to things like mental illness, alcoholism, “feeble mindedness” and promiscuity, among other reasons. Ever heard of eugenics?
The law simply cannot be a moving target, subject to the whims of a new justice nominated primarily, and in this case, over strenuous opposition, because he or she does not agree with established precedent.
The law simply cannot be a moving target, subject to the whims of a new justice nominated primarily, and in this case, over strenuous opposition, because he or she does not agree with established precedent.
You mean, insane decisions like Roe v. Wade must stand or Natacha will stamp her feet and bawl.
did you really take constitutional law? your comments don’t reflect a C level student’s understanding of the matter.
the states generally do have plenary powers to legislate on health and public safety matters. that includes, it was generally understood, abortion
the common law forbade abortions after quickening.
the English passed a statute in 1803 forbidding surgical abortion.
it was considered absolutely legit for the states to regulate it, until Roe V Wade federally scraped that out of our national uterus, by SCOTUS judicial fiat.
Most liberal lawyers understand this, and consider it a good thing, but they still understand the factual history of legal viewpoints up until that time.
i might add, that Roe V Wade did not entirely remove the legitimate and constitutional interest of the state to regulate public health in respect of abortion, as every state’s health care regulations binding health care providers implicitly demonstrate, and as Casey V Planned parenthood elaborated in further depth
I can’t elaborate my personal views right now, too complicated, and I will disappoint both sides of the usual conflict. But the law is what it is. The valid and legitimate interests of the states in regulating abortion, subject to the right of privacy enacted in Roe v Wade, remain very real, and you’ve pretended the law is not what it really is.
Oh, and this stuff about holy stare decisis, is subject to the Quasi-Pontifical Authority of the SCOTUS, who as we also know from const law, gets to say what the law is, regardless of what anybody said what it was before, including their own members who no longer can carry a majority. that’s reality in every case.
Stare Decisis is useful for legal security in an environment wherein appellate judges can be trusted to act in good faith. They haven’t been acting in good faith for, oh, about 80 years, so it’s effect in our own time is to preserve the travesties enacted by bad men.
The issue isn’t the court. Stare decisis is directional not determinative. As new information became available and as science helped enlighten us on various issues, ie slavery, women’s rights, segregation, SCOTUS had to look at the available information and cautiously but logically, re-adjust. The problem is that Democrats and liberals have previously and continue now to abuse the courts in order to get a liberal agenda passed. Arbitrary fiat has been the liberal/Democrat MO for years (see Obama’s multiple Exec Orders, the 9th Circuit, NY courts) and Democrats aren’t willing to go through proper channels to exercise constitutional authority (see recent impeachment attempts based on Mueller report and now FAKE impeachment preceedings). And of course, Whitehouse, Hirono, Blumenthal, Durbin, and Gillibrand letter proves their fascist tendencies in the context of the court… and of course have proven it across freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and other key constitutional rights.
Do the Democrats really think they are going to win the next election? Don’t they realize that Donald J Trump is going to be nominating judges for the next 5 1/2 years? I know they think this impeachment is going to hurt him, but it is hardening his base and adding new supporters. The Democrats are not helping their cause.
Really? (plus infinite number of snarky emojis)
Bravo! Isn’t it interesting to remember how many wanted Reagan’s AG Ed Meese lynched because he said the same thing!